IDE : Eclipse Vs NetBeans

NetBeans is an open-source project dedicated to providing rock solid software development products.I love Net Beans and its free like eclipse (Idea Injelli J is cool but its a paid IDE). If you want to do a quick start, instead of wasting time in IDE setup especially for web application development my vote goes for Net Beans.

The other day I have to do some experiment in a struts web app, I started using eclipse, now it told me to download tomcat, struts libs, setup environment variables and so many things before i can see my hello world app. Then I just downloaded Netbeans click on a sample project of struts, there it goes, with the eye blink, the entire project was ready, compiled with all dependencies and deployed on bundled tomcat . I started playing with app and experimented what I had to learn without much hassels of project setup etc as i had to do with eclipse. The User interface is very intuitive.

Pros and cons

So, now that the two environments are on a fairly even footing in the features and functionality they provide, what’s the difference? A lot of it has to do with personal preference and what the IDE is being used for. In fact, many developers use both Eclipse and NetBeans — just for different projects or clients. Each solution still has its own drawbacks and frustrations. Here are two of the most common distinctions users make between the IDEs:

Ease of useAccording to quite a few developers, Netbeans is easier to navigate right out of the box as long as you don’t try to use all the bells and whistles at first. It’s potentially more difficult to grasp at an advanced level compared to Eclipse because you really have to know what you are doing in Java to complete more complex projects. It could be ideal for beginner Java developers who just need the basics to start with and who are willing to take a “learn as you go” attitude to the rest of the platform. At one time, NetBeans featured a more pleasing and intuitive interface than Eclipse; but Eclipse has improved in this department recently.

PluginsEclipse has a huge array of plugins delivering capabilities that aren’t necessarily available with NetBeans. Sorting through the plugins and dealing with plugins that break because of updates to new versions can be a headache. Third-party plugins offer lots of variety but aren’t necessarily reliable because of a lack of quality control. This reliance on plugins has led to quite a few complaints about the stability of the Eclipse platform; there’s a lot that can go wrong as the number of plugins increases. That being said, if you get the right plugins, it can make life a lot easier.

NetBeans tools tend to be a little more standardized as part of the Sun/Oracle brand. For example, a GUI builder comes with the NetBeans platform while it’s only available as a plugin for Eclipse. At the same time, many Google development tools like those for Android are easily obtainable as plugins for Eclipse and are not part of the regular NetBeans package. Some plugins are available for NetBeans (including a few that can be ported from Eclipse), but these plugins introduce a whole different set of complexities and the plugin technology isn’t as mature for NetBeans when compared to Eclipse.

At this time, it appears that Eclipse will continue to dominate the field due to user familiarity and the availability of custom options. However, the fact that NetBeans is a viable option means Eclipse will need to keep their plugin issues under control to retain customer loyalty.